Spook Hill Neighborhood Action Assoc.

“Dark Skies” Test Area Identified Within the Desert Uplands

Jul 06, 2006

Our association has for years urged that there be no streetlights in the Desert Uplands area so that our views of the stars and the city lights are not degraded. However, the Mesa Traffic Engineering Department stresses that the city should enforce a uniform lighting standard on all of the public streets in the city. When the Desert Uplands Standards were updated a few years ago, we were unable to convince the city to not require streetlights in the Desert Uplands, but the intensity of the streetlights was reduced in our area compared with the rest of the city. Last year, when the Blandford Companies planned a 54 lot custom home development on Range Rider Trail east of Hawes Road, we worked with Blandford and with District 5 City Council Member Rex Griswold to convince the council to reduce the street lighting requirement as a test case in the area north and east of Hawes and McDowell Roads out to the city limits and to only require lights at the entrances to the four gated communities in this development ?– partly for visibility by emergency services vehicles and to provide for a lighted area for school children waiting for their bus on dark winter mornings. Stone Bridge Mountain is not included in the test area.